Although members of the media continue to report on the nefarious activities of Donald Trump’s advisors, sources who were or are currently close to the Trump campaign tell The Daily Caller that Trump operates essentially free from advice, bringing into question how much — if any — influence these advisors have.
Two separate articles Thursday reported damaging information about Trump aides and advisors. The Associated Press said they had obtained emails that showed that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates had lobbied on the behalf of a pro-Putin Ukrainian government to undercut American efforts. Manafort and Gates have maintained they worked for a Ukrainian political party and not the government.
McClatchy also reported that Joseph Schmitz, who was named by Trump as a foreign policy advisor in March, has a history of Anti-Semitism. A complaint filed by a colleague said that Schmitz summarized his accomplishments as the Department of Defense Inspector General as firing “the Jews.” The colleague also alleged that Schmitz said that “the ovens were too small to kill 6 million Jews.”
“The allegations are completely false and defamatory,” Schmitz said in response to the claims. Schmitz added that he is “quite proud of the Jewish heritage of my wife of 38 years.”
While these stories are certainly damaging to Trump’s advisors, one longtime Trump advisor close to the campaign said about Schmitz, “Who is this guy? I never heard of him. Who is he?” He described Schmitz as part of the “the sizable foreign policy advisory panel that they put out when the press kept hounding them that they didn’t have one.”
An advisor who previously worked with Trump told The Daily Caller about Schmitz, “I think he has like zero influence. They don’t even know who he is. Does Trump even know who he is?”
So while these sources formerly and currently close to the Trump campaign don’t think Schmitz has any real influence, what about top aide Paul Manafort and his deputy Gates? A source close to the Trump campaign called stories that Manafort acted on the behalf of Putin’s interests and was paid illegally “bullshit.” He added, “they call us conspiracy theorists? There’s a conspiracy for you that’s completely unfounded.”
A former Trump advisor said, “if anything [Hillary] was a Putin stooge in her time as Secretary of State.”
If the Manafort stories are valid, how much influence do Trump’s aides have? Former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg told The Daily Caller, “I advised him against supporting Planned Parenthood during the primary. But he supported it.”
Nunberg described the meetings he had with Trump to TheDC. “[Trump] wanted to know all the positions [of the other candidates], hear your suggestion, the basis for your suggestion and then he would come to his own determination. He wanted to hear all sides of a policy issue.”
“He is completely independent of people and interests. He’s his own man,” Nunberg added.
Longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone previously told TheDC that Trump is so free from the influences of aides that he controlled the entire creation of TV ads during the GOP primary.
In March, when asked who he talks to for foreign policy advice Trump replied, “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”